On this day, March 22, 1984, teachers at a preschool were falsely charged with the sexual abuse of schoolchildren.

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Last edited Sun Mar 22, 2026, 01:06 PM - Edit history (2)

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• 1984 – Teachers at a preschool in Manhattan Beach, California, were falsely charged with the sexual abuse of schoolchildren, leading to the longest and costliest criminal trial in United States history.

McMartin preschool trial

The McMartin preschool trial was a day care sexual abuse case in the 1980s, prosecuted by the Los Angeles District Attorney, Ira Reiner. Members of the McMartin family, who operated a preschool in Manhattan Beach, California, were charged with hundreds of acts of sexual abuse of children in their care. Accusations were made in 1983, with arrests and the pretrial investigation taking place from 1984 to 1987, and trials running from 1987 to 1990. The case lasted seven years but resulted in no convictions, and all charges were dropped in 1990. By the case's end, it had become the longest and most expensive series of criminal trials in American history.


Virginia McMartin during the McMartin preschool trial

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Media coverage

In 1988, The New York Times reported that the case "attracted national attention when the authorities speculated that hundreds of children might have been molested and subjected to satanic rituals" and "has teetered on the brink of mistrial".

The media coverage was generally skewed towards an uncritical acceptance of the prosecution's viewpoint. David Shaw of the Los Angeles Times wrote a series of articles, which later won the Pulitzer Prize, discussing the flawed and skewed coverage presented by his own paper on the trial. It was only after the case that coverage of the flaws in the evidence and events presented by witnesses and the prosecution were discussed.

Wayne Satz, at the time a reporter for the Los Angeles ABC affiliate television station KABC, reported on the case and the children's allegations. He presented an unchallenged view of the children's and parents' claims. Satz later entered into a romantic relationship with Kee MacFarlane, the social worker at the Children's Institute International, who was interviewing the children. Another instance of media conflict of interest occurred when David Rosenzweig, the Los Angeles Times editor overseeing the coverage, became engaged to marry Lael Rubin, the prosecutor.

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On March 22, 1984, teachers at a preschool were falsely charged with the sexual abuse of schoolchildren.

Fri Mar 22, 2024: On this day, March 22, 1984, teachers at a preschool were falsely charged with the sexual abuse of schoolchildren.